Trust Unjustified
by Thought
Summary: Betrayal hurts when it comes from someone you trusted so completely.


Trust Unjustified

By: Thought

Disclaimer: Song, characters and quote aren't mine.

A/N: I'm sorry. I hate Dylan, and my brain, which is operating off of cold meds, came up with this. It's auish, and you get to make up all the antecedent action by yourselves! Mwhahahahahaha!

Summary: Betrayal is a hard thing to deal with.

XXX

Surrender, then start your engines

You'll know quite soon what my mistake was.

Dylan Hunt. I swear to the Divine, if I hear that name once more I will kill the person who says it. If there's even a slight inclination not to go through with it, the sight of Rommie curled up on the extra bunk in my ship would have sealed it for me. I could feel bile rising in the back of my throat as I watched her shoulders shaking, her breaths coming in short, uneven gasps as she tried to get her tears under control. My own eyes, traitors that they were, stung with unshed tears, hovering just beneath the surface, unbidden and unwanted.

My head was pounding, and though I desperately wanted to offer comfort to the distraught woman in front of me, I couldn't bring myself to move from where I stood, hands clenched into fists at my sides. The blood from the small gashes left by my fingernails in my skin made my hands damp and slippery, mixing with my sweat. It's funny. Whenever anyone describes blood, it is dripping, or pooling, or flowing, or some such adjective to the same effect. But not a drop of the small trickles of blood had fallen to splash harmlessly on the floor. Not yet, at least. Maybe that doesn't come until later. Maybe the blood is made to wait to fall so that it may flow along with the tears that I am not willing to shed. Maybe, blood and tears do mix together as they do in all the trashy romance novels I read.

For those on horseback or dogsled,

You turn at the bend in the road.

It scares me when Trance cries. I had never realized it until that moment after leaving Rommie to her own personal hell, standing beside the purple girl as her silvery tears flowed free and unchecked across her lavender cheeks. Her tail was wrapped protectively about her waist, her hands pressed against the environmental station. She wasn't shaking, nor did she make any sound as her grief poured out. No, for the mysterious one there were only silent tears. The expression on her face as I watched her was heartbreaking. She looked more vulnerable in that moment than I had ever seen her in all the time I'd known her.

She looked over to me, not even making an effort to hide her tears. Her voice, when she spoke, was fragile and sounded so, so helpless. "It wasn't supposed to happen this way"

I hear she still grants forgiveness,

Although I willingly forgot her.

I didn't want to deal with Harper. I didn't want to see the betrayal in his eyes, the proof that he couldn't even trust his closest allies or friends. I was scared of what he might say, and what my reactions might be. But I went back to the engine room anyway, hoping with one half of my mind that he wouldn't be there. He was, of course. Where else would he be? I've always known that fixing things, putting them back together, finding out how they worked, was a way for him to hide from the rest of life. In a way, I reflected as I watched him fiddling with one of his pet projects, he was making up for his lack of understanding when it came to the world and the people in it by finding out all he could possibly discover about machines and how they worked. Replacing human motivations with mechanical ones.

"Hey," I said softly, not wanting to startle him. He looked up slowly, and I can tell that he hasn't slept for over a day by the dark circles of fatigue marring his eyes.

"Hey." Okay, so he didn't want to talk. Fine. I could deal with that. In all honesty, I didn't particularly want to talk either.

After a few minutes, he turned to me, rising to his feet and glaring in annoyance. "Is there something you want?" he demanded sharply, crossing his arms protectively over his chest. In that moment, I felt as if I had been struck down with a forcelance. Sure, Harper and I have had our differences, but the open hostility in his dull blue eyes drove home for me just how badly he was taking this.

"HarâSeamus," I whispered, taking a step towards him and resting a hand experimentally on his thin shoulder.

"Don't touch me!" he cried out, jerking away from my light touch, and scampering to the other side of the room, staring at me with a mix of apprehension and anger.

"Harper, I just wantâjust want to" I faltered for words at that point, for the truth was that I had no idea what I wanted to do. It wasn't as if I had come with a written out script, I had just felt the need to be near to the person who was most like a younger brother to me.

"I don't want to talk," he snapped. And then, in a smaller, more desperate voice, "Please just get out"

The offering is molasses and you say,

I guess I'm an underwater thing so I guess I can't take it personally.

First and foremost for a Neitzschean is survival. To arise victorious from every battle, to master any challenge. So why, I wondered to myself, was I going to check on Tyr Anasazi, self-proclaimed survival expert, and the man who was just as likely to go off in a slipfighter and forget us altogether, than to care about one betrayal by our dear Captain. And yet, I was making my way to the cargo bay of the Maru, where Tyr had vanished off to after the final showdown. For some reason, even though we still had full run of the Andromeda, none of us ventured beyond the walls of my little ship. He was reading. I'm not entirely sure which book, for the only words he spoke to me for the full duration of the first ten minutes I was there, consisted of a line from its pages. Without even glancing up to acknowledge my presence, he spoke in that steady, cultured voice of his.

"Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of sense to know how to lie well."

I blinked. "Who said that?"

He didn't respond, and I stood, unsure what to do with myself. Finally, he spun on me, eyes cold. "Is there a particular reason you are here, Rebecca? Or did you merely think to come and find out if I was handling my ever so devastating grief any better than the others?"

I recoiled at his harsh tone. "Well, I guess I am kinda the official Captain, unless you really wanna still follow Dylan, and, uh, he always tried to find out what we were feeling, at least sometimes when he wasn't too busy, and I think I should at least make an effort, and I've already seen most everyone else, but I thought I'd come to see you before I saw Rev because, well, I don't know why, I just guess I thought that maybe you were handling this better than I was because I'm not, but I've gotta be strong, so I am, but you're always so—" Tyr cut me off impatiently, placing a finger over my lips, silencing me. That, I decided, was probably a good thing.

"Go speak with the Priest. I assure you, he will be much more accommodating to your uncontrollable bursts of emotional drivel than I am."

I glared defiantly up at him, eyes flashing. "You can not tell me that you aren't feeling some kind of anger, at least, towards him!"

He shrugged marginally. "No, I can't. Now go talk with the Maggog, and when you have gotten over your desperate need to wear your heart on your sleeve, I will be waiting."

I ran from him, the closest to crying I'd come all day.

I guess I'm an underwater thing I'm liquid running

There's a sea secret in me

It's plain to see it is rising

But I must be flowing liquid diamonds.

Rev, to my surprise, was not praying when I found him. He sat, on the bunk across from where Rommie had finally fallen asleep. His eyes were fixed on a point somewhere on the wall, and the only sign that he noticed my arrival at all was the slight incline of his head. Quietly, I sat on the bed beside him, my own gaze dropping to study my hands, which were clenching and unclenching in my lap. The tears I had felt at the back of my eyes after my encounter with Tyr were threatening to fall at any second, and I didn't know how long I could hold them back.

"So," he said finally.

"So," I repeated, just as softly. He turned to face me, and I saw tear tracks on his face.

"It is strange," he said. "Always before I have been able to find a reason behind each tragedy that has befallen me. Some way that it fit into the master plan of the Divine. But this, this I can find no explanation for. It is as if the Divine has abandoned us in our hour of need, and I find myself wondering if there truly is a Divine at all. How could a being so powerfully good as God is reported to be, ever allow such an event to happen?"

I didn't know what to say to that. Always, I had relied on Rev for faith, and for reassurance. And now he was losing that, and I had no idea what to do. "I honestly don't know what to say," I told him, my shoulders slumping.

He studied me for a few minutes, before asking, "When was the last time you slept, Beka?"

I shrugged. Quite honestly, sleep had been the last thing on my mind for the last little while. "I don't know. Over three days, I think."

"And the last time you ate?"

"Longer? I really am not sure, Rev."

He sighed, and rested a hand on my shoulder. "If you want to be of help to anyone, you need to help yourself."

"Why?!" I demanded, suddenly angry. "Why should I get anything? Everyone else is in shock, or they've they're grieving, or something! I haven't even cried, Rev. All I can feel is anger. Anger that Dylan would give up his crew for his God damned Commonwealth! I'm so bloody selfish, I'm sure he had a perfectly good reason and a good plan! And all I can think about is ripping out his heart while it's still beating and crushing it under my boot until there's nothing left of his soul but a crumpled husk of flesh!" My breaths came in harsh pants, my hands clutching the thin blanket fiercely.

He caught my hands, holding them in his own. "Beka," he murmured gently. "Those are completely natural thoughts to be having. Everyone reacts to betrayal differently, but you should not punish yourself for something you can not control."

I could feel my entire body shaking, and I tried to get my breathing under control.

"Come on," he told me, rising, and pulling me with him. "You need something to eat, and then some rest. The universe won't fall apart anymore than it already has while you're sleeping, I promise."

And as he lead me, unresisting to the small galley, I felt the last of my numb shock falling away, and slowly allowed other feelings aside from anger to take their rightful place in my mind again. But I still didn't let the tears fall.

Calling for my soul

At the corners of the world

I know she's playing poker

With the rest of the stragglers.


End file.
